Hmmm... what now?

Its been almost 2 weeks since I was laid off, and its starting to sink in how difficult it might be to find work around here (or anywhere). It seems that all the architecture firms in Denver (and likely across the country) are either also in the midst of layoffs, or so anxious about the lack of work that they are in hiring freeze mode. I'm still sending resumes to firms in the area and exhausting my connections, but am also working on plans b, c, d, and e... It doesn't seem to matter much what kind of resume or references you're coming to the table with or even who you know. Of course, if I had prison design experience, I'd have a job next week.

So everyday we're running through the same questions... Will I work in some alternate industry? Will Jenna start looking for work in her former industry? Will we have to sell our house and move again? Will we just sit it out and eat up our savings? Should I freelance and/or start my own side business until firms start hiring again? Lots of options, and I would say we're fairly fuzzy on the what direction is best.

Yet for some reason we're both pretty relaxed and un-stressed about the situation. I don't know if we're in denial, if its all the prayers from our friends, or the knowledge that we have a good amount in reserve in our savings account (though intended for a basement finish), or a combination of all. I'm nervous about finding a job, but no particularly about whether or not we'll be okay. I guess having done our 8-9 month stint of financial stress a couple of years ago while waiting for our house to sell in CA, we have learned to trust a little more that things will turn out in the end. The biggest question is 'when is that end?'... and a close second is 'how do we get there?'... neither of which ever gets answered for you in advance.

Of course, having a smiling toddler who is just excited to have you home all day definitely helps the psyche. Laina couldn't be happier, plus I have to say the last few days have been ideal days to not be working (60s and 70s all week so far).

Montana is big and I have no job

So, after a morning layoff, I went to Montana for my friend Jeff's wedding. It worked out okay for me, because it was a good way to take my mind off of being unemployed for a few days. It wasn't the greatest for Jenna, however, as she was stuck at home to think about how we were going to deal with my lack of income.

Since I don't really have much news on the employment front (aside from some decent leads that I'm hopeful about, but its too soon to tell whether they will pan out), I figured I'd blog a little about the Montana trip.

I didn't know many people who were going, but turned out I had met a couple of the other groomsmen before. The first night I discovered I was one of a few others there that had also been laid off recently, so I was not alone. It turns out it had been raining over melting snow for a few days before we got there, so the ground was solid ice in a lot of places, which made walking a little tricky. We also decided that snowboarding would not likely be all that fantastic, so the whole wedding party, along with some other family and friends went cross country skiing in Glacier National Park instead, which was gorgeous and very big. On the drive out we passed a few bald eagles swirling around in the sky above a turquoise blue river next to some snowy mountains... pretty awesome. I didn't get a picture but here's a random google images hit for 'ya for a visual of what that was like:


Cross Country skiing is actually pretty fun, especially with a big group of mostly novices. I fell more times than I could count due to the slightly icy snow, the complete lack of metal edges on the skis and my total incompetence, but it was still a lot of fun. One of the oddest things I noticed was a sign in the forest that informed you that you were, indeed, in the forest


On the drive back to town, we passed one of the most unusual and scary things I'd ever seen. There was a highway patrol pulled over on the side with someone in front. As we got closer we all caught a glimpse of the culprit. A four-wheeler/ATV was pulled over on the side with a BABY in a car seat strapped to the front (rear-facing of course, for safety). I'm hoping the guy was being pulled over for wrecklessly endangering the baby, and not for a broken taillight or something...

The rehearsal took place in the evening, after the sun went down, but I could tell we were near a lake of some sort. The next day at the wedding, I realized this was not just any lake, but a really, really big lake. In fact, it was Flathead lake, which is 2.5 times bigger than Lake Tahoe, and the largest freshwater lake in the western US. It was gorgeous and enormous, much like Lake Tahoe. I snapped a few cell phone photos that don't even come close to doing it justice. It was really surreal to be so ignorant of the local geography that I wasn't even aware of this lake's existence.


The wedding was great, and it was fun to experience Montana and get to meet some of the natives and take in some of Montana's natural abundance. It never even occured to me to visit Montana before, but now I might consider going back at some point for a trip (it is probably equally gorgeous in the summer).

Anyway, I'm back home now, and getting my job search in motion. Hopefully I won't be out of work for long and no drastic life changes will be necessary.

SCL moment

Some of you may read the blog "Stuff Christians Like". I feel like I just lived a moment right out of the pages of Prodigal Jon's cyber-world.

Jay has been away for a few days so it's just me and Laina holding down the fort here. There is this church literally 5 minutes up the street from out house that has a couple Saturday evening services. I won't be able to go to our normal church in the morning because we'll be picking up Jay from the airport. Jay and I had been to this church right up the street before, a couple years ago when we were first looking for a church in the Denver area. There were some things we liked and some things we didn't, so we kept on our church hunt. We found our current church and it really felt like home, so we settled in. Now with a kid and 2 years later, I often drive by this closer church and, knowing they have Saturday services that work fantastically with Laina's schedule, keep thinking we need to give it a second chance. So, with Jay gone, I thought it would be the perfect time for me to go check it out again.

I got Laina settled into the right classroom, headed into the sanctuary, and immediately remembered why we didn't feel at home there. It feels very "over-produced" and they have camera people all over the place filming. It's pretty distracting. I got a seat and seriously could not focus, there were so many things I was critical of. I'm not saying this to talk bad about the church. It really is a wonderful church with hundreds if not thousands of attenders. They are obviously doing something right. I am saying it because I know this is an area that I need to work on in my life - being critical.

So about half way into the service, I think in my head, "oh my gosh, I'm totally here for free childcare!" That's the SCL moment. I'm pretty sure there is a post about using church for free childcare on his blog somewhere in the archives. The message ended up being good and I was glad I went and didn't completely feel like I was "using" the church, but it was still funny to me.

There you have it - my real-life Stuff Christians Like moment.

Christmas Trip Finale

I'm going to wrap up the Christmas blog, as its already 2009...

So, after spending a couple of days at Jenna's folks' house, we headed down to Orange County to my brother's house on Christmas Eve after stopping off for Christmas Eve services at our old church, Rock Harbor. I was dreading the Christmas Morning early wake-up call, since Jenna and I were both fighting colds, and really needed sleep. Luckily the kids didn't wake everyone up until around 6:45, and we managed to sneak downstairs and join them without waking up Laina, so she got to sleep in. It was a fun day spent hanging out with family, staying in (rainy outside), and playing with all the new toys. Their living room is really a play room, so there was all kinds of fun stuff for Laina to do even if she hadn't gotten any presents (of which she got plenty).

Laina loved her cousin's new dollhouse (and luckily got a more age appropriate one from Grandma Hoskinson for Christmas) and spent a huge amount of time playing with her cousin Kaity (and wanting to ride in the little car they have, and go down the slide in the living room). She also found a connection with her cousin Conner in a love of fighter jets (my kind of girl... from dollhouses to fighter jets in no time flat).


Her cousin Kylie got to read her bedtime story, and I got to give her some drawing lessons (if you can call them that), along with playing endless games of Sorry, which she dominated consistently.

The morning after Christmas, we met up with a bunch of our old friends from our church small group. It just so happened that despite most of them living all over the country, we all were in town that day to meet for breakfast at Ruby's (mmm). It was awesome to see everyone again, like zero time had passed (despite the three munchkins in tow, and the two more on the way).


Then we headed back to the airport, and had a much less eventful flight back, actually arriving early. The only panicked moment was when we got to my car way out in the economy lot and realized I had left the dome light on, so the battery was dead. Luckily we had just been chatting with another couple with kids while walking to our car, and I was able to run and flag them down to give us a jump.. (whew).

The next morning was Saturday, so we had our own mini-Christmas at home, with a few presents to open. We had a "Christmas Story" style Christmas Dinner at a Chinese restaurant (the roast duck).


So, this year the Christmas week was a little more hectic than we'd like, but it was good nonetheless, and we had a great time getting out and seeing everyone. Laina loved all the attention for sure. Its really an amazing holiday, in that we're celebrating the fact that the very God who created everything and everyone actually took it upon himself to be born into our world as a helpless infant in a stable, and despite his omnipotent authority, revealed himself first to the lowest of the low in the culture (shepherds, then prostitutes, tax collectors, etc). Its really rediculous if you think about it. Its absurd to even suggest, if not for the fact that it actually happened. One of the things I love about the way God works is that he doesn't tend to do things the way anyone would expect. Of all the ways that a writer would conceive of God invading the earth, none of them would look anything like the events documented in the gospels. Probably more like Independence Day.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

Christmas in California part Deux

Jenna narrating this time...

We had Christmas a little early at my parent's house up in Palmdale, where it was almost a white one! As we drove through the mountains between Santa Clarita and my parent's house, they were flecked with snow and it reminded me of powdered sugar dusted all over them. Mmmm. Snow is rare there so it was pretty neat to be there for it (though it was all done snowing by the time we arrived).

Laina had a fantastic time, after she got used to Sashi and Roscoe, the two little barky dogs. She absolutely loved the little blow-up, old-school reindeer my mom had - she was carrying them all over the place and giving them kisses the whole time! She aquired several new Dr. Seuss books, of which her favorite is Green Eggs and Ham and she even asks for it by name. One of her other favorite things about my parent's house was my dad's electric drum set. This little girl loves to rock!

I am sad it was a short visit but there was just so much to see and so many places to be in so little time...Next was a drive down to Orange County and our old church, Rock Harbor, for thier Christmas Eve service (which was awesome) and then on to Jay's brother's house. I'll let him post about that in the next installment. Maybe he can get this whole saga wrapped up on one more chapter, but it might drag on to four.

Christmas in California part 1

This is going to be a multi-parter, since there was so much activity packed into a weeklong trip. My dad was generous enough to offer to fly us out to California if we wanted for our Christmas gift, and after initially declining, I decided (and convinced Jenna) that we should go ahead and make the trip this year, since future years will be all spent at home and I hadn't seen everyone in a long time. We chose wisely as this was the first of three Christmases since we've been in Colorado that wasn't a white one.

The trip started out pretty interesting. As we were taxiing out of our gate, the pilot got on the intercom and announced that the west half of the airport was shut down for some unknown reason, and we were going to be delayed. We found out on arrival in Burbank that the reason for the delay and shutdown was that Continental flight that crashed on takeoff. Suffice it to say, that an hour delay sounded pretty reasonable given the circumstances.

We got to the Hoskinsons house (my parents) and put Laina to bed, then spent the next day at their house with Laina's three cousins (who were eagerly awaiting her arrival) and aunt and uncle (my brother and his wife). The kids had a great time playing with their cousin Laina, showing them as much fun stuff as they could come up with in a day. We went outside for a while and they all spontaneously broke out in a production of "The Wheels on the Bus" to Laina's sheer delight. I can't decide if she got a front row seat or she's the star of the show.

We basically spent the whole day hanging out, playing games, and watching the kids parade around the house with Laina. She loved it. We spent the night there, then headed up to the Ali's house (Jenna's parents) Monday for Christmas #1. That's all for part one. Here's some pics:

This is a classic "lets make the kids stand facing directly into the sun" picture... sorry guys

Dueling lego towers action. Later I started building lego robots for battle, and Kaity (red dress) kept asking me "Can you build another mighty robot Uncle Colorado Jay?" How could I refuse? Although I don't know how mighty they were if Conner kept destroying them. Incidentally, I'm "Uncle Colorado Jay" because they have another Uncle "J"

We discovered that Laina just perfectly fit inside the lego wagon, along with a teddy bear buddy, so many laps were made with her in tow (with all three cousins getting a 'turn'). Luckily she loves wagons.

She WALKS

Yes, it could be considered a Christmas Miracle! Just one day short of 20 months, Laina decided she can walk all by herself. She has been consistently walking with Jay or me holding her hands, and just in the last couple days would walk a little bit holding onto only one hand. We knew she had the balance and skill to do it on her own, but we thought she was afraid to try. Well today she conquered that fear. I was in our bathroom putting on makeup, and Laina crawled over and asked for the headband on the counter. I gave it to her and continued getting ready. Then I looked over and saw her walking on the tile, all the way across our not-small bathroom. (I love how she picks the hardest floor to fall on for her first walk!) When she got to the carpet, she sat down (for a break I guess), then got back up and continued walking on the carpet, half way across the bedroom, where she sat down again. Then she got up and walked right out of the bedroom and down the hallway! Of course I didn't have our camera with me upstairs, so I had to re-create the moment later. I particularly like how the lighting at the beginning makes it look even more like a Christmas Miracle.